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San Diego Sarah has posted 9,748 annotations/comments since 6 August 2015.

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Second Reading

About Tuesday 25 July 1665

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

They thought worms ate teeth, Gerald. We should read this as infections ... when antibiotics no longer work, we may not find this so surprising.

About Thursday 27 July 1665

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"... we with great content took coach again, and hungry come to Clapham about one o’clock, and Creed there too before us, where a good dinner, the house having dined, and so to walk up and down in the gardens, mighty pleasant."

Alderman Sir Dennis Gauden had a big house at Clapham as of 1661. Many years later, when Gauden falls on hard times, Hewer purchases it and Pepys lives with him there until he dies. This sounds like Pepys first visit to his future home.

About Thursday 27 July 1665

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"Who calls so loud? At 4am"

A couple of weeks ago Pepys told us his alarm clock was broken, and he was using a loaner from his watchmaker. Maybe it was back ... if I were Pepys, I'd give it to the maid so she could make him a nice hot cup of something and deliver it to his bedroom when she wakes him up. That way he'd know his small beer and snacks would be ready downstairs when his boy had dressed him in his red suit with bands trimmed in lace and dress sword.

No mention of what his boy is up to while Pepys is off gallivanting with the rich and famous. I suppose he's running errands for the cook and delivering document for Hewer? Taking cookies to Elizabeth? Picking the lock of the wine cellar?

About Saturday 22 August 1663

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

In the later 17th Century, particularly after London's Great Fire, with a reduced demand for timber, the active management of woodland declined.

Gypsies colonized Dulwich Woods, and told the fortunes of Londoners who rode out to meet them, including Samuel Pepys.

Margaret Finch was called the "Queen of the Norwood Gypsies," and she died in 1740, at the age of 108 (image is in the Public Domain). It may have been her mother or aunt who told Pepys' fortune.

More information about Dulwich Woods, etc. https://mark-patton.blogspot.co.u…

About Wednesday 26 July 1665

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"... with Anthony, who tells me he likes well of my proposal for Pall to Harman, but I fear that less than 500l. will not be taken, and that I shall not be able to give, though I did not say so to him."

Shame on you, Pepys. And exactly why won't you contribute to Pall's dowry?

About Wednesday 26 July 1665

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"I home to set my Journal for these four days in order, they being four days of as great content and honor and pleasure to me as ever I hope to live or desire, or think anybody else can live."

I hope Pepys had the opportunity to wear that expensive new red suit. And I bet his hat was off for the entire four days.

About Wednesday 26 July 1665

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"... Mr. Castle, who told me the design of Ford and Rider to oppose and do all the hurt they can to Captain Taylor in his new ship “The London,” and how it comes, and that they are a couple of false persons, which I believe, and withal that he himself is a knave too."

Capt. John Taylor's new ship was named The Loyal London, and L&M says it was launched in 1666, so I guess this was its working name. The old London was launched in 1656, so it wasn't the new ship.

They sound so petty: There's a war in progress, Tangier is desperate for food and supplies, people are dying all around them, and they are scheming against each other.

About Sir William Killigrew

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Sir William Killigrew MP (1606–1695) was the former governor of Pendennis Castle in Cornwall, and made and lost a lot of money draining the fens. He was knighted 12 May, 1626. He must have known James, Duke of York because he was in Oxford when it fell. At the Restoration he was made Vice-Chamberlain to Catherine of Braganza, an influential post.

From 1664 to 1679 he was Member of Parliament for Richmond, Yorkshire.

Killigrew was the author of four plays of some merit (so Pepys may have known him):
Ormasdes, or Love and Friendship (1664)
Pandora, or the Converts (1664)
Selindra (1664)
The Siege of Urbin (1666).

About Wednesday 26 July 1665

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"After a little other discourse and the sad news of the death of so many in the parish of the plague, forty last night, the bell always going, ..."

Pepys is talking to Anthony Joyce, and I don't have a note of where he and Kate lived. The context here would be how many deaths there were in the Joyce's parish recently (40) rather than St. Olave's (1).

About The Royal Society

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Bill Bryson has a new book out about the Royal Society. All of it, not just the beginning:

"Seeing Further: The Story of Science and the Royal Society
by Bill Bryson -- From the Royal Society, a peerless collection of all-new science writing

Bill Bryson, who explored all - or at least a great deal of - current scientific knowledge in A Short History of Nearly Everything, now turns his attention to the history of that knowledge. As editor of Seeing Further, he has rounded up an extraordinary roster of scientists who write and writers who know science in order to celebrate 350 years of the Royal Society, Britain's scientific national academy. The result is an encyclopedic survey of the history, philosophy and current state of science, written in an accessible and inspiring style by some of today's most important writers.

The contributors include Margaret Atwood, Steve Jones, Richard Dawkins, James Gleick, Richard Holmes, and Neal Stephenson, among many others, on subjects ranging from metaphysics to nuclear physics, from the threatened endtimes of flu and climate change to our evolving ideas about the nature of time itself, from the hidden mathematics that rule the universe to the cosmological principle that guides Star Trek.

The collection begins with a brilliant introduction from Bryson himself, who says: "It is impossible to list all the ways that the Royal Society has influenced the world, but you can get some idea by typing in 'Royal Society' as a word search in the electronic version of the Dictionary of National Biography. That produces 218 pages of results — 4,355 entries, nearly as many as for the Church of England (at 4,500) and considerably more than for the House of Commons (3,124) or House of Lords (2,503)."

As this book shows, the Royal Society not only produces the best scientists and science, it also produces and inspires the very best science writing."

https://www.goodreads.com/book/sh…

About Mary Butler (b. Stewart)

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Richard Butler, 1st Earl of Arran's first marriage was to ‘a lady of extraordinary quality ... that might have been made a wife for the King himself’.

She was Mary Stewart, suo jure Baroness Clifton of Leighton Bromswold, the daughter of of James Stewart, 1st Duke of Richmond, and heir to her brother, Esmé Stuart, 2nd Duke of Richmond, s.p. (he died in Paris in 1660, before the Restoration).
Mary and Richard were married on 13 Sept. 1664 (with £20,000).
She died 4 July, 1668

About Richard Butler (1st Earl of Arran)

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

The House of Commons have this to say about Richard Butler, 1st Earl of Arran:

Richard Butler was brought up with Ossory, his other brothers having died young, but he shared few of his accomplishments and virtues.

Although ‘singularly adroit in all kinds of exercises’, notably tennis and the guitar, his amorous and alcoholic proclivities made him a symbol of ‘the baseness and looseness of the Court’.

Richard Butler was returned for Wells at the general election of 1661 as a compliment to his father, who was lord lieutenant of Somerset, and became the first member of his family to sit in the Lower House at Westminster. But he was not an active Member of the Cavalier Parliament, in which he acted as teller in five divisions but was appointed to only 20 committees. Most of them, including that for the uniformity bill, were in the first session, before he was made Earl of Arran (cr. Earl of Arran 13 May 1662) and given Irish appointments worth £5,000 p.a. according to report.

Richard Butler, Earl of Arran was listed as a court dependant in 1664 and as a government supporter in both lists of 1669-71.

Arran's first marriage was to ‘a lady of extraordinary quality ... that might have been made a wife for the King himself’, while his second wife, besides her portion, had prospects of an estate of £3,000 after the death of her father and her sickly young brother.

m. (1) 13 Sept. 1664 (with £20,000), Mary (d. 4 July 1668), suo jure Baroness Clifton of Leighton Bromswold, da. of James, 1st Duke of Richmond, and heir to her bro. Esmé, 2nd Duke, s.p.;

m. (2) June 1673 (with £12,000), Dorothy (d. 30 Nov. 1716), da. and heir of John Ferrers of Tamworth Castle, Warws., 2s. d.v.p. 2da.

For more info, see http://www.historyofparliamentonl…

About Monday 24 July 1665

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"... and told several stories of the Duke of Monmouth, and Richmond, ..."

Monmouth is 15 -- he's been married for two years, but no children with Anne Scott arrive until the 1670's. How bad could he really be, while serving with uncle James during the war? Pinching the maids' behinds? Consorting with actresses?

Richmond is, of course, Charles Stewart, 4th Duke of Richmond, and we heard that he had done something egregious on April 19:

Duke of Richmond
Written from: London Date: 19 April 1665
"This last unhappy action", that the writer "was engaged in, is abundantly punished, by his fear" of the misfortune of losing the King's favor; but now he is actually fallen thereunder ... In his affliction, he asks the Duke of Ormonde's mediation with his Majesty ...
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/s…...

About Monday 24 July 1665

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"George must have like the Bro Thom. Vincent's many warnings of impending doom, brought on by the ruling class."

George is Sir George Carteret, and Bro Thomas Vincent was:

Thomas Vincent (1634–1678) an English Puritan Calvinistic minister and author. He was the second son of John Vincent, elder brother of Nathaniel Vincent (both prominent ministers), born at Hertford in May 1634.

After attending Westminster School, and Felsted grammar school, Essex, he entered Christ Church, Oxford, in 1648, matriculated 27 February 1651, graduated B.A. March 16, 1652, and M.A. June 1, 1654, when he was chosen catechist.

On leaving Oxford, he became chaplain to Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester.

In 1656 he was incorporated at Cambridge. He was soon put into the sequestered rectory of St. Mary Magdalene, Milk Street, London, and held it until the Uniformity Act of 1662 ejected him.

He retired to Hoxton, where he preached privately while assisting Thomas Doolittle in his school at Bunhill Fields.

During 1665, he preached constantly in parish churches. He said, “And if Monday night was dreadful, Tuesday night was more dreadful, when far the greatest part of the city was consumed: many thousands who on Saturday had houses convenient in the city, both for themselves, and to entertain others, now have not where to lay their head; and the fields are the only receptacle which they can find for themselves and their goods; most of the late inhabitants of London lie all night in the open air, with no other canopy over them but that of the heavens: the fire is still making towards them, and threateneth the suburbs; it was amazing to see how it had spread itself several times in compass; and, amongst other things that night, the sight of Guildhall was a fearful spectacle, which stood the whole body of it together in view, for several hours together, after the fire had taken it, without flames (I suppose because the timber was such solid oak,) in a bright shining coal as if it had been a palace of gold, or a great building of burnished brass.”

His account of the plague in “God’s Terrible Voice in the City by Plague and Fire,” 1667, is graphic; seven in his own household died.

Subsequently he gathered a large congregation at Hoxton, apparently in a wooden meeting-house, of which for a time he was dispossessed.

He died on October 15, 1678, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Giles-without-Cripplegate.

For more information see http://www.apuritansmind.com/puri…...

About Sunday 23 July 1665

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"Hampton Court was in a semi-rural situation then - there would not have been much available in the locality to feed and water people."

Au contraire, there's much more food at Hampton Court Palace than at Westminster. It's surrounded by Royal parks full of protected game ready for the hunt. There's acres of land for veggies and chickens and fruit trees. And there's salmon, trout and swans swimming in the Thames, flowing right by the Palace. The hawk master has his falcons ready to go.

Doesn't sound like Charles II and James had much time for this type of fun, though. But others would have been gathering the summer bounty.

About Tar

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Morisco was ‘the tar’ man who had a monopoly on the tar industry. In June 1664 there is an entry in Pepys’ Navy White Book about trying to negotiate with Morisco for his tar. After some price/quantity discussion Sam notes that he has some concern that Morisco may not want to do business with the Navy as it may upset his “normal” (i.e. paying) customers.

There are more annotations about him on https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…

About Sir Thomas Ingram

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

The House of Commons website for Sir Thomas Ingram MP says he was born in June 1614, the 4th but 2nd surviving son of Sir Arthur Ingram (d.1642), of Templenewsam, Yorks., being the only son by his 2nd wife Alice (daughter of William Ferrers, Mercer of London, and widow of John Holliday of Bromley, Mdx.).
In 1637, Thomas Ingram married Frances, daughter of Thomas Belasyse, 1st Visct. Fauconberg.

http://www.historyofparliamentonl…

Frances Belasyse 1618-1661 - https://www.ancestry.co.uk/geneal… -- Born in Fauconberg, Yorkshire, England in 1618. Frances Belasyse married Thomas Ingram and had 1 child. She passed away in 1661 in Middlesex, England.

About Art

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

The symbolic values of colors were fixed in the Middle Ages, and the system lingered for about 200 years after the Middle Ages "sensu stricto" had ended. It was complex -- the reason why it died out -- and some colors were ambivalent in meaning. The significance of a color was generally understood and accepted.

Here are some colors with their symbolic values:
· white: purity, humility;
· blue: loyalty;
· red: love, strength, courage (but also occasionally pride);
· black: death, suffering;
· yellow: vanity, untrustworthiness, betrayal ("fake gold");
· green: the color of life, but also the color of poison – a color with not always clear connotations
In Britain, green was also associated with prostitution. (This was not the case anywhere else on the continent, and no other color was ever systematically used for this purpose.)

About Sir James Harrington

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Sir James Harrington / Harington was married to Katherine Wright, who inherited Swakeleys House from her father, Lord Mayor Sir Edmund Wright. After Harrington fled to the Continent, Katherine sold Swakeleys to Sir Robert Vyner.